Super Paper Mario coming to Wii this April

I have Zelda (barely started), Red Steel (haven't started), Excite Truck (halfway completed I think: S grades up to gold) and plan to pick up Wii Play and Mario Party 8... I think that's plenty right there when Metriod comes in April-June (so says my cousin's source), Brawl in June, and Galaxy at Christmas.. I'm sure there will be a few others that might interest me as well, like Strikers Charged, and that war game that was annouced with strikers. There's also plenty of VC games coming that will take time as well.

So there's plenty coming for me. Maybe some of you should rent other the titles to see why people like them so much. My personal experience is renting Excite Truck.. the game play blew me away and I bought it.. easy as that. I'd like to rent Warioware and 2nd opinion at some point.

Eggmanim:

Gamecube was released in North America November 5th, 2001.

Super Smash Bros. Melee:

http://www.gamespot.com/search.html?type=11&stype=all&tag=search%3Bbutton&qs=super+smash+bros.+melee&x=0&y=0

Thank you.


-Kye

It's funny you would say that Kimosabae. I am actually in the camp that found Zelda to be fairly uninspired when compared with that last few titles in the series (my favorite in that last 10 years is Minnish Cap). I thought that Monkey Ball was deeply flawed and I loved the first one (Monkey Target!).

Now that I've actually started playing games that make better use of the motion controls (other than WiiSports) I'm getting more excited about the potential of the system. That's part of the reason I'm playing the bejesus out of Super Swing Golf. It's a great sing when I can tell how well I hit the ball just from the feel of my swing.

To #39, component cables for the Wii do not cost $50. They are $30 from nintendo.com right now, and you can get those fishy Hong Kong ones for half that.

To everybody else, the system has been out for 64 days. Pick an argument and stick with it. You have 2 to choose from. Either there aren't enough good games, or there are too many GameCube ports. You can't pick both. If your argument is that the games aren't good simply because they were initially planned for another system, then you have no argument. Zelda is a good game. Super Paper Mario will be a good game. If they're not "next-gen" enough for you because their development was started on the Cube, then shut up and go buy a PS3. Please.

@50, kind of. i stopped allowing you any credibility at the word 'wiip'. just as you probably did for me when i said 'asshats'. :p

a few notes: EA has given nintendo some serious love, moreso in the past few days, pledging even more support than previously stated.

second, and something few of you seem to realize, the wii is already a success. it will have outsold the 360 a year from now. unless nintendo ceases production. i own both a wii and 360, attached to a samsung h5679w. i love the high res stuff, but in all actuality, the common consumer doesnt really care. the sheeple, if you will. :) i love both of my systems, but you must admit that the common consumer, the 'not-so-hardcore' gamer doesnt care about graphics, assassin's creed or bioshock. they will not shoot aliens or have a giant chicken in their stolen car. and thats why the wii is a success already.

nothing can change that, and saying that controls are tacked on is just the same old crap from the same old disgruntled nintendo-haters.

i say, why hate? why does everything have to be a negative? why whine about smash bros coming out way after launch? i wont own a ps3, not even for my monster tv, but thats my own pterogative. my dad could care less about a cell processor, but he does know he can play tanks with a wiimote and nunchuck, and thats all he cares about. that times 6.5 billion people is what nintendo has going for it. hardcore gamers, unfortunately, take up a very small percentage of that number.

while this doesnt personally bother me, i can relate. if Nintendo took so long on Zelda Wii that it got pushed back to the Wiis sucessor (and i wasnt planning on buying the Wii2), id be pretty peeved.

He really did use the word 'wiip'. I smell fanboy sweat.

I don't see why people are complaining about the lack of games from nintendo. It's not like there isn't still a shortage of wiis. Hell, by the time they finally meet supply, maybe all the good games might be out by then. Which is kinda depressing since I still haven't gotten mine... Sigh...

*just wants to play Zelda really badly*

I just recently got the Wii, and all I could say is WOW THAT'S AN AMAZING SYSTEM!!! It doesn't freaking matter whether $ony/M$ fanboys call it a GCN-1.5 (b/c of it's 2-3x the power of GCN) it's amazing NEW GAMEPLAY IS/WILL continue to sell the system through it's lifecycle. I went through shopped through lines that stretched a good 80+ people waiting for this GCN-1.5 and guess what!!! People who were buying didn't care about the systems CPU or GPU all they know is it's a terrific and slick system!!!

Don't get your fret up about advanced ai and other program - related stuff. They are do-able on the wii as much as on any other system. It's just an algorhytm.

The things that really take cycles and power are stuff like HD, advanced lightning, anti - aliasing and more graphical related stuff.

And, last but not least. I would rather like the free wii sports game than no game but dolby digital and HD, because in my opinion (and for my case), that is still a niche market.

Greetz, kite

Padriac wins the Internet. End of thread.

Whoa, that last comment actually worked and ended this thread. Score. ::goes back to playing Sonic 2 on the GameCube disc emulating the Genesis on my Wii::

Note: "substantial" does not equal "interesting". Twilight Princess is, by any real standard, substantial. Just because you don't like playing it doesn't mean it's not - it just means you don't like it. Huge difference. I hated Suikoden III, but it was substantial. I just didn't like the substance.

And the original Paper Mario was intended for the SNES but was pushed onto the N64. Big surprise? No, not really. Yes, it sucks if you have a Gamecube but don't have/want the Wii, but my guess is that by April, certainly, it'll be more readily available in stores.

I just wanted to mention that AI is limited by programmer ingenuity and time, NOT by computing power. Deciding if a non-player character turns around, ducks, scratches his ass or shoots back- even if it's a really complicated process tied into all sorts of variables and events- doesn't take 1/100th of the power it takes to render a million polygons per second.

If we could put the power that goes into graphics all into AI, provided that we weren't limited by the current ceiling on understanding what makes good computer AI, you wouldn't be able to distinguish between a non-player character and an actual real human player. The point is that processing power does not, in even the very broadest stretch of a fanboy's imagination, limit AI as it currently exists.

I think the misconception that a faster process yields awesome AI is due to Sony's boasting, which is largely unrestrained by reality.

Super Paper Mario is going to be cool.

@figboy

Your post was nothing but a longer way of saying "THE WII IS OUTDATED and HAS BAD GRAPHICS THUS IT WILL FAIL, I MEAN YEAH IT WILL FAIL"

yeah i could of SWORN i heard the same shit during the whole DS vs PSP Fiasco

Yeah have fun with your 600 dollar Paper weight, you could of spent that kind of dough on a overclocked computer capable of MUCH MUCH more

Face it, the amount of Power means nothing in the console war, its how people use Whatever power they have, and as of now, i see nintendo's playing field with the advantage, and honestly the games EPIC makes on anything other then the PC sucks DICK

I can See the DS following the Wii
All the technology in the world is useless if you can't even do it right, oh and btw i find it sad that a game like Motorstorm on such a POWERFUL console runs at 30 frames per second ON A SDTV XD

WHERE THE FUCK IS OUR 120FPS SONY?! OR 1080P WHILE RUNNING IN 4-D!

Man such a Waste of a Intelligent argument, to a lack of common sense

You people have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to AI. Behavior Based Artificial Intelligence, the specific type of AI used in games, is not some redundant easily written code. Anyone who thinks otherwise it has already completely discredited themselves in this blog and doesn't know what they are talking about. Who here has written an AI script? Anyone? I have for an advanced C class.

Project was to guide a LEGO Minestorm robot through a maze and to see which team could do it the fastest. It took a team of four, self included, the entire semester to get it down right. It was a very very basic maze. We had over 1500 lines of code when finished and I can say that it was the hardest thing I've programmed to date.

Good BBAI is usually very long winded code, requires many branches, in OOP languages is going to use polymorphism to an extreme extent, and it going to be very long. It is not something this gen of CPU's can handle well either. They are all strict order execution and limited branch prediction. They are for the most part ill suited for said task. Anyone play F.E.A.R.? Revolutionary AI that wouldn't be possible on CPU's only a few years ago. And to the misinformed person that posted that HDR and Graphics is what the extra power is going into is WRONG. That's the GPU you is there for. The CPU generally handles the physics, AI, and controls the flow of data throughout the system. Hell the 360 can even do 4xAA and HDR with literally an almost zero hit of performance. Look at Assasins Creed. They could not get the crowd AI right for the PS3 in the allotted time they had for developing the game so the 360, as mentioned by the devs themselves, said will be a little bit better in that department.

Look at projects like AIBO who every so years got a huge boost in realism. AI and such has been around for at least the 50's and is still in it's infancy. That should tell you how hard it. I have the utmost respect for developers than can create a good BBAI because it is hard and extensive and does push the hardware limits. There's no easy way to program the behavior of ten or hundreds of characters and make them seem self aware and thinking and even smart. Very few games have good AI. Anyone who wants to see it done right and to fully realize how bad it has been in the past play F.E.A.R. Usually it take a few engineers working a one or more years, day in and day out, to finish the AI for a game. To say it is easy or doesn't require a lot of computational power is ignorant.

Final point. Horse power under the hood does help video games more than the wiimote in my opinion. What's the current perceived nirvana of gaming? Virtual Reality (which will eventually get replaced with hologram rooms like in stark trek :) ) Which, for your info, can't be run on wii hardware. It will require screens way more detailed, cpu's hundreds if not thousands more powerful than todays leader, and a gpu unimaginable by today industry best. Better experience though technology.

"Wii owners will forever be satisfied with nothing but Nintendo titles (as evidenced by the poor sales of most 3rd party titles on the Gamecube and DS)"

You know, I agree with that to a point, but at the same time, I also own a Wii and I'm not forever attached to Nintendo titles. Between the PS3 and Xbox 360, right now I would probably get a 360 only because it is establishing itself quite well and I do not really see the PS3 doing anything significantly different from what the 360 is capable of doing; that is, of course, speaking at this point in time. What the future holds for all the consoles is yet to be seen obviously.

The Wii is not the superpower of a system the 360 and PS3 are, but for what it can do (or potentially do in the future) it does right. It might not be able to display crystal clear resolutions or push the envelope of AI, physics, or any other realistic implementation, but I still enjoy it nonetheless.

I mean gameplay is relative to each individual, and as much as I am an avid fan of the latest and greatest graphics and capabilities, I also enjoy an experience where I can give a controller to a non-gamer like my parents or friends and can just pick up and play. If looked at that way, then yeah, the Wii is doing its job.

For me, at least, I'm satisfied with what the Wii is capable of, and accept that it's not technologically capable of things the PS3 and 360 can do. But for what it's worth, I also enjoy the subtle things that the Wii can do that the PS3 can maybe somewhat emulate in the future and the 360 cannot do at this time.

you people nagging about AI - you know the Wii CPU was designed with AI and branch prediction in mind. It doesn't have the speed the 360 or PS3 does, but it has a processor designed to handle AI, at least as well as the PS3 can.

I've come to the conclusion that hardcore gamers have lost sight of something important. There is no way in hell that higher resolution, better AI, and physics adds any fun to a game. If that's the case, we can all simply watch tech demos and be satisfied. But the bottom line is that games are about interactivity. Without that, we're just watching movies. Last time I checked how well we interact with the game determines how "fun" a game is. Years from now we'll look back on what we're playing now when the graphics are trumped by something better and the only thing left is the interactivity. Which is how we determine whether or not a game is classic.

I used to think that graphics add to the experience, but I'm starting to think that's just not the case. At the end of the day, graphics will get old and dated. How we relate to the game at that time is determined by the gameplay. Why is a game like Super Mario Bros. still a classic? Or why do people still play and purchase the games of days gone by? It's not because of the graphics or resolution. It's about the gameplay.

Reading threads like this make me sad, because the focus should be on gameplay. And if you think about it, what will define games that we will ultimate play on a "holodeck" type device? The gameplay and how we interact with the game. You can bet we won't be using joysticks, gamepads, or wii remotes. I would go as far to say the experience will be 100% gesture based. I think we're looking at the first step down that road right now.

jaysins:

"...AI used in games, is not some redundant easily written code."

That's exactly my point. AI is hard to program... but that doesn't mean it takes massive computational power. So when a console designer claims that his new console with all its power will be able to produce better AI, he's lying. What is currently holding it up is that it takes some seriously skilled programmers, not processor power.

"Project was to guide a LEGO Minestorm robot through a maze and to see which team could do it the fastest. It took a team of four, self included, the entire semester to get it down right. It was a very very basic maze. We had over 1500 lines of code when finished and I can say that it was the hardest thing I've programmed to date."

Again, you're right, and we agree. It takes some serious, intelligent and breakthrough programming to do AI... but not processor power. 1500 lines of genius code is awesome and it's difficult to program, but it doesn't take a PS3 to run it. Something that is difficult to program is different than something that is difficult to run.

"And to the misinformed person that posted that HDR and Graphics is what the extra power is going into is WRONG."

You mean the entire gaming community, developers, media and consumers? They're all wrong in saying that all the power put into the next generation gaming consoles is for graphics? That's all I've heard for the past two years. You're the first person I've found that's saying anything otherwise.

"There's no easy way to program the behavior of ten or hundreds of characters and make them seem self aware and thinking and even smart."

Yeah, hundreds of characters at once might start to tax a console, but a few guys shooting at you?

"Usually it take a few engineers working a one or more years, day in and day out, to finish the AI for a game. To say it is easy or doesn't require a lot of computational power is ignorant."

Again, you're right and I agree with you. It takes tremendous programming to do this. So much so that most games ignore it. And yet you're sort of claiming that this process is hindered by not having enough of a processor to run the software on? What's hindering good AI? The fact that it takes years just to program what we consider barely acceptable today is evidence that this issue is of programming, not more powerful consoles.

"Final point. Horse power under the hood does help video games more than the wiimote in my opinion. What's the current perceived nirvana of gaming? Virtual Reality (which will eventually get replaced with hologram rooms like in stark trek :) ) Which, for your info, can't be run on wii hardware. It will require screens way more detailed, cpu's hundreds if not thousands more powerful than todays leader, and a gpu unimaginable by today industry best. Better experience though technology."

Your "final point" has nothing to do with AI, which you spent the whole rest of your post on.

Answer me this: If we had a computer with unlimmitted power dedicated to making great AI, are there game programmers today that could use it to make people who shoot back at you in an intelligent way, or would they not yet know how to program it?

sweet jesus.... i dont know what to say.... how about the fact that all wii games are gonna have tacked on controls to suit gameplay, how bout? how much fun would it be to have a controller that detects motion, but NEVER USE IT!? no fun i presume. so they "tack on" controls so it can better suit the system, for better or for worse. I dont see a problem in tacked on controls. What i do see a problem in is when the controls are tacked on poorly. and i dont see why no one makes fun of sony for this. look at the sixaxis. the whole idea around the motion detection was tacked on at last minute. im not saying that its bad, but i dont see that good of a use for it YET. (keyword being YET, stfu fanboys) atleast the wii has made use to their *ahem* "gimmick" better than sony did.

also, i dont see a problem with delayed games. id rather wait for something good then get a crappy CD that barely reads. its just like if u were going to a theme park. there is a good ride, and a crappy ride. the good ride has the line, but the crappy ride doesnt. which one will be worth my money? also, how good of a game could superman (n64) be if the developers spent a couple more months on it(well not that good considering its SUPERMAN, but it would function better)?

figboy- i understand what ur saying, but i think you are underestimating the wii on some levels. true, wii cant pull of MGS4 graphics, but it can do some of the things u mentioned it cant. also, sum things cant be measured, like online play, since its not out at the moment.

sure, the wiimote hype will go away, but wont the graphics on the ps3? when the ps2 first came out, i remember thinking that the graphics were a work of art, but 2 years later, they are nothing to me. its normal.

Its funny how the comments towards the end don't have anything to do with Super Paper Mario...

BTW I still play Starcraft, an old game but hell its fun!

StarCraft is so fucking good I've been playing it for 9 years.

You know, contrary to popular belief, I don't actually enjoy StarCraft due to the amazing fun I have playing it. I actually play StarCraft entirely for the resolution and the cut scenes.

::has never played a Paper Mario before, but I'm going through Superstar Saga on the GBA right now, and I think I'll have to play the rest of the Mario RPGs afterwards::

@GlitchCog

Glad you could constructively criticize rather than bash :)
Ok so I reread my post I should have checked it before I posted it as it is sloppily written. So yes it takes some very skilled programming, my personal venture into the subject took four people 3 months to do and it was a pretty easy when compared to the cutting edge of AI development. When we use AI as a term in game design we are not talking about it in it's pure meaning buy rather mimicking intelligence or BBAI. For a computer generated character to seem intelligent he has to deal with many of the situations that a person has to go with. I am going to use a shooting instance since you mentioned it at the end of your post, however the character I'm explaining is more advanced than any game character I can think of. The character has to be aware of self ie know where he his arm is and if it is interacting with anything, no where his immediate environment is, know where his enemy is, be aware of his actions and how they affect his environment ( don't want a character running into walls) has to react to his environment, navigate it, be aware of the other player and NPC's, work in conjunction with his teammates, react to his teammates, react to you, devise a plan, alter plan and execute said plan revise execute etc. All these things have to be done as close simultaneously as possible. To make AI engaging and not repetitive you have to give the program many ways to act in the same situation and to try different plans or try and figure out the best route and to adapt to what is going on and changing like a real human would. Programming something like this is somewhat sequential. The CPU will be cycling in an set or random order of instructions. Code represent different actions so a lot of code is needed, even if designed as efficiently as possible, to result in a character that is capable of doing more things, reacting and acting more lifelike, making better decisions and more difficult. Think of all the things one can do it a 3-D environment. A very good enemy might consist of tens of thousands of lines of code that the CPU must be running though constantly. The CPU has to move from one end to the other of the program, skipping back and forth in an attempt to overcome the player. The CPU's in the Wii, 360 and PS3 are not particularly good at this as they are in order execution processors. They do have branch prediction and have a hard time when programs, like AI protocol, are not sequential. A new athlon or intel processor would actually be much more efficient in this regard. A ideal AI will plan execute plan, learn, react and revise plan, learn more, rexecute etc. To mimic the human thought process a computer capable of processing exaflops of information or 10^18 bits of data a second is needed. That's how much computational power is needed for human like thought.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI
Very very CPU intensive. As the character must be able to realize everything around them and react accordingly. There is not way to make this CPU efficient. You can take short cuts and take out unlikely situations or create more generic responses to cut down on CPU utilization, which is happens to be the case today, but you get a less lifelike character if you go to far. No matter how you look at it it takes a lot of code and the CPU must be able to sift though all of it extremely quickly if it is to make the character seem competent. And again, Assassins Creed is going to have dumbed down crowd AI for the PS3 because of limitations they had with the CPU in the allotted time they had to work with it. So bottlenecks are already being reached. They will be extended and pushed back, but will always be there.

When I said things like graphics, HDR and AA do not matter I meant do not matter to the CPU. Heck on the 360's GPU it takes an almost zero performance hit for HDR and 4xAA thanks to it's eDRAM die on the chipset. CPU is used to order the tasks, calculate physics and AI, and keep track of what is going on and relay it to the gamer. Todays GPU's handle all the AA, HDR, z stenciling, geometry and vertex shading and even more and can even aid in Float Point Operations like they do for Folding At Home. Heck they will even participate in physics calculations once ATI and NVIDIA get on it. So HDR and AA and such do not effect the CPU much if at all and do not hurt in the performance of AI is what I meant.

When I was talking about VR I was trying to make the point that more powerful hardware is needed to get to where I think many people want gaming to eventually go. You will need CPU's thousands of times more powerful, GPU's of an incredible magnitude and a room with nothing but screens of immense resolution and quality. Not even this is as good as a holodeck on star trek though :) We need more powerful CPUs. Think about how much advanced AI is going to have to be to make you feel that you are interacting with another person at that level of detail. Good stuff.

Finally, I do like your last question, could they do it if they had the most powerful computer imaginable. To better clarify what we could do, you should also ask would it be thinking? Once you get to that level you would need the best programmers on the planet, but philosophers and mathematicians as well. With enough time and all that power they could create an experience you couldn't tell was not a real person playing. Would it think like a person would.. probably not. You would perceive it and it would mimic a person extremely well but whether it would cognitive or capable of thought and truly aware has yet to be seen. It is referred to as Strong AI and currently the best minds in the world are debating that right now. I think we will have to wait until quantum computers evolve, which are still in their infancy, to be able to really answer that question. Thanks for the questions though, anymore let me know.